I took a four-day trip to France this week to attend the
Annecy Festival of Film Animation, and along with spending time with filmmakers and fellow journalists, I also managed to see five films. Writer-directors Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado enthusiastically offered a sneak screening of
Forgotten Island, a ripping, gloriously animated adventure centred around friendship memories. And Pierre Coffin and Chris Meledandri were on hand to open the festival with the world premiere of
Minions & Monsters. It's a joyous romp through early Hollywood, the best minions movie yet. I also saw
Nobody, a gorgeously animated and superbly well-told adventure from China;
The Violinist, a beautiful but unsatisfying personal drama set over half a century in Singapore; and
Soul Shift from Germany, a riotously silly, bright-hued sci-fi comedy with a sharp point.
Meanwhile in London, the
34th Raindance Film Festival is heading into its final weekend. I caught four films:
Think of England is a cheeky wartime British comedy that morphs into a rather intense drama; from Iran,
My Daughter's Hair is a dark and involving family melodrama;
Pescador is a provocative, artistic road movie that plays with magical realism in Mexico; and
The Troll is a brightly deadpan pastiche of influencer delusion. Reviews and reports from both festivals are coming soon.
Finally, I saw two films that open in cinemas this week. Milly Alcock is Supergirl in a followup to last year's Superman. Set in outer space, it's a very different film, enjoyable but derivative, with lots of big action-comedy set-pieces. And the Icelandic vampire thriller Thirst has a dry, camp sense of humour running through the queer, outrageously grisly nuttiness.
Coming up this next week, I'll be watching a few more films at Raindance and catching up with others that I've missed. Oddly, there are no press screenings in the diary for my birthday week, but I do have a show titled
-370°F at Sadler's Wells.
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